Ever since I heard of steampunk, I’ve been waiting for there to be a glut of movies in the genre. Screen seems like the ideal medium considering that, imho, there’s more of an impact visually when you see it than you get from reading a description of a nifty anachronism. So, one would think that both directors and prop designers would be enchanted by the idea. But…it still hasn’t happened yet.
Any theories as to why there are so very few steampunk movies, particularly live-action ones, and TV shows?
Expensive, something of a niche taste, and the victim of the bad luck not to be showcased in a good movie. If some movie full of steampunk was a major hit, you’d probably see Hollywood do what it usually does with hit movies and imitate the bejeebers out of it.
There are a few, though they’re only tenuously steampunk really. The Golden Compass, City of Ember, and the recent Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes all had elements of steampunk, but didn’t commit, nor have a plot that could only be told in a steampunk world. It looks like the upcoming Three Musketeers has some steampunky stuff in it too.
It’s expensive to rig out an entire Victorian era movie with added proto-sci-fi, so it has to be a guaranteed ticket seller to be worth the money. So far there are very little guarantees in that end of things.
My theory is that it hasn’t taken off because it’s stupid.
I have lasers and computers and silicon processors and flat screens and all manner of cool, nearly weightless but strong materials all around me now; why would I want to “imagine” a world that has those same things, only they’re big and clunky and heavy and powered by archaic means?
What the fuck charm would there be in a calculator that takes up a building and needs a furnace to power it, when I have a wireless phone that calls anyone else on the planet and also takes pictures, plays movies and TV shows and games, and has a calculator, dictionary and all the information on the planet built right in?
We know too much about what it takes to make technology happen for most people to see a steam-powered robot made out of iron and think “neat-o!”; most people would see that shit and think “well that would never work”.
I loved the Wild Wild West (television series), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Disney version) and even the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic book no the movie), but until sometime after the year 2000 I had never heard the word steampunk. I don’t think it’s fair to say that steampunk is stupid. I don’t really see the appeal, despite my enjoyment of entertainment that are considered steampunk by some, but if there’s a good story to be told I don’t really care all that much about the setting. What does steampunk offer that other forms of fiction do not? How can that be transferred to film?
Odesio
PS: I admit it, I will not see the new Three Muskateers movie specifically because they added dirigibles.
Well, it’s essentially a late-Victorian setting, with themes of adventure, exploration and derring-do, inhabited by dashing gentlemen in uniform. Add some science fiction, and I can see the appeal.
The steampunk/clockpunk aesthetic is entering mainstream slowly: see the *Hellboy *movies, for instance, or Warehouse 13, which uses lots of actual steampunker-made props, or NuWho’s Tardis/Cpt. Jack’s teleporter/The Girl In The Fireplace automatons/Alt-London’s airships, etc. Aeon Flux movie had a bit of it esp. with the airship. Or Alias’s Rambaldi stuff, or Lara Croft movie devices. I think it’s easier to do with episodic fiction like that, where it doesn’t overwhelm other aspects of set dressing. Also in gaming - there’s a strong SP element in World of Warcraft, for instance, and in Morrowind. Arguably Bioshock (well, dieselpunk).
But *entirely *steampunk projects are harder to sell, as they’re more targetted at a specific, smaller fanbase. But they *can *work (like Sherlock Holmes, which is has a sequel in the works) if tied to an actual setting with a larger interest.
Seriously, it is. It works well enough in a novel because of willing suspension of disbelief. That;s just the way the world works and you are asked to accept it and moved on. People who don’t like that sort of handwaving put it down and forget about it. That works for novels because novels are cheap to produce and they sell a lot of volume. Even so cyberpunk is niche of the sci-fi fantasy genre, whichis itself a fairly niche publishing genre.
That isn’t going to work for a movie or TV show. Those things are expensive to produce and they need wide appeal. As others have noted, steampunk would be very expensive to produce, more expensive than any other genre, so it would need to be wildly popular.
So how can you make what is a silly niche genre of a niche genre popular? I don’t think it can be done. You can’t just handwave away the premise of steampunk. You need to be able to explain why electricity doesn’t work and why mechanical devices can achieve the same as electronics. The vast majority of your audience won’t simply suspend disbelief. The producers of “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and “Van Helsing” found that out the hard way. By neglecting any sort of explanation they invoked some sort of magic, but then failed to give any rules for the magic. As a result the movies immediately lacked any sort of tension or conflict. In a world where undefined magic exists, any sort of deus ex machina can be invoked by the writers or the audience’s imagination, destroying any sort of tension in the story.
As a result steampunk ends up being either bland or, more often, silly.
Perhaps a really good writer could come up with a good steampunk movie, but they would have to be extraordinary. Your typical Hollywood hack isn’t going to have a chance. And anything less than a really good effort is just going to be a farce because the concept is inherently farcical.
This is in stark contrast to cyberpunk, which is basically just sci-fi in a crapsack world. It can be farcical, but it isn’t an inherently farcical, in many ways it’s just an extrapolation of all the bad trends in the modern world. As such you don’t need to explain anything about cyberpunk or sci-fi generally. But steampunk is a divergent reality, and any script needs to spend time explaing why reality diverged as well as the rules of the new universe.
I was wondering this myself recently, although in the context of the broader question: why aren’t there more collision-of-genre movies? (the recent Cowboys and Aliens movie being a counterexample). Brazil borders on Steampunk. BakelitePunk probably - if there is such a thing.
I take slight exception to the term “silly.” I believe “frivolous” is a better description.
The Steampunk aesthetic (in my limited experience) is something people play with. It is fun to dress up as characters and carry props that could have come from a Victorian adventure novel or a pulp series.
Hollywood has trouble with spending a lot of money to make light entertainment. (If they could make it cheap I am sure they would, but even the computer time to create a virtual Steampunk environment would cost a bundle.) Hollywood seems to be looking for big pictures that will appeal to a wide audience and sell a lot of tickets. So, period adventures such as the recent Sherlock Holmes film with a touch of overly-elaborate mechanisms is as steampunky as we are likely to see in the near future. Unless someone finds the right story and the movies takes off – then we will see all sorts of horrible pseudo-Victorian shows being produced as brass-bound bandwagon jumping ensues.
Personally, I think that some of the proto-steampunk novels (such as Jeter’s Morlock Night) woudl make good films, but most of the more recent “zombies and zeppelins” stuff would be terrible on screen.